


A strange knocking on my door

by aurelushs



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Cuddling & Snuggling, Kinda, M/M, Michael: i’m going to disturb the archivist!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-30
Updated: 2019-12-30
Packaged: 2021-02-27 13:29:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,676
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22027846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aurelushs/pseuds/aurelushs
Summary: “Statement of Hasti Scheving, regarding a bizarre and menacing figure knocking on doors. Original statement given January 2nd, 2018. Audio recording by Jonathan Sims, Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute, London. Statement begins-”
Relationships: Michael/Jonathan Sims
Comments: 6
Kudos: 134





	A strange knocking on my door

**Author's Note:**

> wrote this bc @helen-richardson on tumblr wanted some jonmichael content and i’m more than happy to supply

_ “Statement of Hasti Scheving, regarding a bizarre and menacing figure knocking on doors. Original statement given January 2nd, 2018. Audio recording by Jonathan Sims, Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute, London. Statement begins-”  _

Jon looked over the papers on his desk, two copies of the same statement, one in Lettish, and one in poorly translated English. He silently cursed the fact that nobody in the Institute spoke Lettish, or Latvian Latviesu Valoda, well enough to give him a correct translation of it, and he knew it had translation errors but he still read it. There was something familiar about the summary he knew of the statement, but he couldn’t think of what it was because the creeping anticipation in his throat was creeping up on him and pulling his voice from his body. 

_ “In March of 2017, I noticed something was wrong in my home, I had recently moved into a new house in an old neighborhood in Latvia eight months earlier. Normally it wouldn’t have bothered me, houses have odd quirks, especially old ones. So if I hadn’t gotten a new bookshelf, I wouldn’t have noticed. I’ve always had a fascination with old architecture, and when my husband, Aleksis, found a house from the early nineteen hundreds, I jumped on the chance to buy it for us. He’s a doctor, and I work as a financial advisor, so money isn’t really a problem for us. I had entertained a fascination for architecture since I was a young child, and the house fascinated me. The way the floorboards creaked and groaned with weight, the smell of the old wood and the style of the boards. It was a door into the past. So when I noticed a scratch on the boards behind the old bookshelf, I wasn’t too concerned. Old houses like that have quirks, they are all unique and different, and time wears them down slowly in its own ways. Cracks and scratches are normal. So, I ignored them. I replaced the shelf, and forgot about the scratches. I didn’t think about those marks again until June, when someone- no, something was outside my door and knocking in a rhythm.” _

The familiar ease of reading a statement felt like a second skin to Jon, and his mind was able to drift away from what he was doing,filling him with the feeling of being outside of his body. He had been stressed since the last statement he read, one related to the Web. Jon  _ hated _ Web statements. They always made him think of his childhood. 

_ “It was a man outside my door, and when I opened it to ask what he wanted, he wasn’t there. So, I ignored it. Maybe I was just tired and was hearing and seeing things. But then, that knocking on the door was back, in that same rhythm. I went to look at the door, but the person wasn’t standing there like they were before, and then it happened again the next week. The knocking followed me now, it went through the walls, knocking a path to my bookshelf, staying there, and then moving on. I started losing sleep. Everywhere I went I could hear the knocking, at work, out shopping, everywhere, and Aleksis started to get worried about me. I moved the bookshelf and stared at the scratches for hours and hours, and slowly, the knocking turned into scratching. I watched as something dug its nails into the boards and dragged them down, making new lines in the wood. The scratching was slow, and deliberate, like it knew I was watching.”  _

Jon kept reading, oblivious to the world around him, and he didn’t notice as the door to his office closed itself with no noise. The dark oak wood slowly transformed into an obnoxious hue of yellow, and Jon still didn’t notice. He wouldn’t have noticed anything at all if Michael hadn’t thrown himself into Jon’s desk, taking the papers from Jon and slowly looking them over before cackling. 

“That was one of mine, Archivist!”

“Michael, christ!” Jon jumped when Michael took the papers, snapping him out of the daze statements put him in. ”Why are you in my office!”

“The sign outside the building says you’re open doesn’t it?” 

“That’s not- no! That’s not what I meant, Michael you can’t just come in and take my- take  _ a  _ statement without warning, I was reading that.”

“Hm, still, it was one of mine, so I can read it if I please, can’t I?” 

“The archives are off limit to the general public,”

“I’m not general public Archivist, you know this,” Jon watched as Michael spoke, squinting at him and trying to make out details of Michael's face but it was proving difficult. Somehow, despite his hands being much longer and much more contorted than they should be, he looked perfectly normal and at ease when he was holding the statement, and Jon saw a bit through the Spiral’s touch to the human Michael once was. 

“Why do you never call me my name?” He asked, and Michael stopped reading. He looked at Jon curiously, blinking at him slowly like a cat would. Then, of course, Michael began to chuckle. Jon felt his stomach lurch in the way it always did when Michael laughed around him. But it wasn’t a  _ bad _ feeling, just a feeling. He wasn’t sure yet if he liked it or not. It was odd in the way that Jon’s stomach lurched like he was falling off a cliff, but it warmed like it used to in college when Georgie would smile at him. Jon knew the feeling was something akin to affection, but it didn’t feel proper. No, Jon caught himself, it’s not improper, he knew he was bisexual, it was  _ Michael _ . He was the variable, the anomaly, the unknown. 

“Would you prefer I called you by the name you chose?” 

“Yes, I actually would, calling me ‘Archivist’ is what Elias does, I don’t like it that much.”

“Alright,  _ Jon _ .” Michael was smiling and he wore that smile - the smile that cracked the soft surface of his skin with smile lines and dimples - he wore it like a loaded gun. And he knew just how dangerous it could be. He was waving the gun around and waiting for it to go off. Michael flaunted his danger, and Jon was taking steps closer and closer to the danger zone. “Hasti was a fun one, he figured me out Ar- Jon. He was smart enough to try to catch me, and find out what I was doing. I was simply having fun of course,”

“Driving someone to madness?”

“Not to madness, no, no, no.” Michael was laughing again, and Jon felt his chest warm at the familiar little sigh Michael gave when he stopped laughing. “No, I didn’t hurt him, or his husband. They’re both fine. I just needed some advice. You see, I’m not one of the Watcher’s children, I can’t know things. I have to figure them out myself, and I had quite a problem figuring this one out.” 

Jon paused, trying to grab the statement out of Michael’s hands to finish reading it, but Michael wouldn’t let go. So, Jon gave up. He sat back in his chair, his hand trailing slowly back, but Michael stopped him and held his hand, holding onto it gently. Michael’s fingers ran over the scar from Jude, and he raised his eyebrows at it, frowning. Michael has made comments in the past about not liking when other avatars hurt Jon, and he had felt threatened by that statement in the past but now, now it was comforting. 

“What was the problem?” Jon asked, his curiosity getting the better of him as the need to know dug itself deeper into his skin and rooted itself there. 

“ _ You _ .” 

“What?” 

“The problem is you, Jon. You’re my problem. You see, I can’t figure you out, and I don’t understand what I feel when I see you.” He said, still cradling Jon’s hand gently and never looking at him. “I haven’t been human in a long time, and I never will be again, so I haven’t felt these emotions in a long time.” 

Jon nodded, staring at Michael still, watching the way his blond curls shifted in the light and the spirals of the ringlets always looked different to him every second. The colour of his hair itself seemed to change as well, from blond, to white, to bright yellows and stripes of colour that made Jon’s head hurt to try and conceptualize. He didn’t say anything as Michael got a soft look on his face, and shifted off the desk, laying the statement down on the dark oak and placed himself precariously in Jon’s lap like a very large, very awkward cat. Jon was taken aback by the gesture, of course he was, but something in him knew that Michael needed this, and he wasn’t bothered by it at all. In fact, it felt right to have Michael pressed against him, the two of them somehow fitting perfectly into Jon’s office chair. Neither of them said a word as Michael tucked his head into Jon’s shoulder, and he picked up the statement and continued to read as Michael made himself a fixture in Jon’s lap. Jon felt something press onto his chin softly, and smiled when he felt Michael’s lips not kiss his china but just resting there, waiting. 

“You can if you’d like, I don’t mind.” Jon said, letting Michael kiss his chin ever so gently, and it sent a buzzing feeling through his body that felt like waves crashing against one another in the middle of the ocean, nowhere to go, creating more waves as they crashed together. This felt right to him, to have Michael here. Jon knew Elias would be mad at him, when wasn’t he disappointed in Jon for something he did? But he didn’t care. It felt right, it felt comforting, and he would be damned if he didn’t deserve some relaxation and comfort. 

_ “Statement resumes- _ ”


End file.
